Practical Network Coding Scheme Based on Maximum Flow Combination and Coding Node Identification

Network coding theory has provided a revolutionary approach to challenge the traditional switching theory. Instead of simple stored-and-forward in the intermediate node of network, information can be packaged in order to archive the maximum network flow. Instead of unit capacity, this paper presents an approach to employ maximum flows under integer capacity for multiple receivers to design a network coding scheme. A set of rules for constructing the coding networks are summarized. Firstly, the rules are proposed to transport maximum flows of multiple receivers to the architecture of a coding network. Secondly, the coding node, multicast node and forwarding nodes are defined to determine information routing rules in the corresponding nodes. We show that the proposed approach provides a practical means to construct a network coding scheme.